Which Sheeva plug should I get, multiple manufacturers and choices. Are there any minimum limits to what you are proposing here? Is yours a wifi model, and do they handle wifi well?

For always on, mounted in the car, it's going to need a good stable connection. Should I just get the most basic plug computer and add a USB wifi card?

I'm a little concerned about the power draw of a persistent wifi connection, need to keep it low.

04-02-2011, 02:39 PM

PaulF

As a little update on the status of the coding: I had to make an unexpected trip home from college this weekend, so I'm going to be a weekend behind on this project. The aim now is to get a mostly perfect version 1.0 sometime next weekend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dscustoms

Which Sheeva plug should I get, multiple manufacturers and choices. Are there any minimum limits to what you are proposing here?

The minimum limits are likely almost anything that can physically run python. On my linux box, I haven't seen the program surpass 12 MB of ram and 5% CPU. The 5% cpu only happened when it was searching for devices or getting absolutely spammed with HTTP requests (50 requests/second). The normal CPU usage when it isn't doing anything except waiting for an HTTP request is 0%. I'm sure that once I add a rules engine, there will be a bit more constant CPU usage, but it should really just result in similar, quick spikes of only a few percent. Overall, I've designed this for efficiency in terms of both CPU use and ram accumulation since it is designed to run long term without being touched on low-power platforms. Eventually I would like to get it to run on something as low power as DD-WRT router.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dscustoms

Is yours a wifi model, and do they handle wifi well? For always on, mounted in the car, it's going to need a good stable connection.

Mine is not a wifi model, but I wish it was. I'm sure they wouldn't put a junk wifi chip in it though. I have the most basic, original sheeva plug as I was an early adopter, and I am definitely envious of the newer plugs. On a side note, to satisfy that envy, I'm now toying with the idea of a complete arm-based always-on linux car PC based on the http://www.pandaboard.org/ that will replace my current x86 pc, sheeva plug, and wireless router in one fell swoop. The existence of openMobile makes that look more possible than before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dscustoms

Should I just get the most basic plug computer and add a USB wifi card?
I'm a little concerned about the power draw of a persistent wifi connection, need to keep it low.

Anyway, to be make your decision a little more cloudy, here's some pros and cons I can think of right now:
-The wifi sheeva plug also adds more features. Whether you need them or not is up to you.
-USB wifi cards may consume more or less power depending on the card
-Many USB cards offer poor performance (although this doesn't require much)
-I'm not sure if the wifi sheevaplug has an onboard IPEX connector for an antenna, as an antenna will likely make a big difference.

04-02-2011, 03:44 PM

tripzero

I just wanna say, welcome back PaulF. It's been a while ;).

Also, the pandaboard could be quite awesome. It's on my list of things to try out.

Finally, osdash has a generic "remote control" service that seems to try to accomplish the same goal. maybe there is a way to combine resources here.

04-02-2011, 05:44 PM

PaulF

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripzero

I just wanna say, welcome back PaulF. It's been a while ;).

Thanks, feels good to be back!

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripzero

Also, the pandaboard could be quite awesome. It's on my list of things to try out.

Definitely is awesome. I finally got in the mail this week. Performance is awesome so long as you put the OS on a USB hard drive rather than SD card. At least this is the case for Ubuntu. We need to have a conversation about which OS/software path I should go down for getting a decent carpc setup out of this. Let's not hijack this thread though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tripzero

Finally, osdash has a generic "remote control" service that seems to try to accomplish the same goal. maybe there is a way to combine resources here.

I didn't realize all the OpenICE stuff was still under development...
Anyway, from how I see osdash, the individual project goals are slightly different, but our overall CarPC goals are similar. Ex. my project goal is very focused on getting microcontrollers controlled with roughly no work from the end user. OSdash, has a higher level goal of getting everything in your car under control and require more setup. Making a daemon for every microcontroller, for every platform would be a pain. So how do we bring these two together...

My project right now is structured as...
--Devices (plugins)
A simple python class that provides 3 dumb-simple methods for a device and one additional function for finding devices.
--Abstraction for devices
Wraps device classes with all the nice functions that a control program would require
--Manager
Maintains connections with all the devices, naming for devices, processing for commands, and routing commands to devices.
--Commanders (plugins)
Control the devices through the manager. Each commander has a set priority so that if you, say, send a command through the web interface to turn on an output, but the rules engine wants the
output to be off, the web command wins.

But with this setup in place, I can easily write a "commander" for the DBUS or OSdash or both. This way we complete each other's overall goals...

Sound good? or what are your thoughts?

05-07-2011, 02:49 PM

PaulF

Update on this... I got a lot busier during finals than I though I would but now I'm out of school and have much more free time. In roughly 1 and a half weeks this should pretty much be done and reliable. Also, should have FBv6 support by then too. Sorry about the wait!

05-09-2011, 12:38 AM

dscustoms

Excellent!

06-05-2011, 10:27 PM

PaulF

Sorry guys, I've been battling windows and life. I've started an internship at VMware which eats a very large chunk of time. Windows is also killing me. I can't get a stable USB connection from python on windows.

I'm going to release the linux version of this in the very near future since it is completely stable. I'll offer stable windows support in a few weeks via IronPython or Jython.

06-06-2011, 06:22 AM

dscustoms

Is it going to be Fusion Brain V6 compatible?

06-06-2011, 08:47 AM

sk8rjess

congrats on the internship man. vmware is prob the most famous and most used cross-operating system software.

06-06-2011, 08:30 PM

PaulF

Quote:

Originally Posted by dscustoms

Is it going to be Fusion Brain V6 compatible?

You bet. My first paycheck just cleared today, so I ordered the FBv6 at lunch. I'm rebuilding my carpc around the fbv6 so I'm going to get that support in asap. Sorry it's taking me so long to follow through with this program. So many things keep taking me away from my hobbies. I'll update you in a couple of days. I really want to say everything will be final and fbv6 support will be in this weekend, but I'm really unreliable about these deadlines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sk8rjess

congrats on the internship man. vmware is prob the most famous and most used cross-operating system software.

Thanks man. VMware is awesome. I didn't realize just how big they were until my orientation. They exploded from 625 million in '05 to 35 billion in '11. Virtualization is completely taking over data centers and no other company can touch them in that regard.